Kenna
I hold my breath as I run through the dark, my cloak billowing out behind me like a crimson curtain. The tunnel of gnarled, bent trees is longer and tighter than I anticipated, and I have to crawl on all fours toward the end.
But the tunnel doesn’t drop into the inky dark underground as expected. I trip, falling down a shallow ledge and land hard on my knees.
The tunnel entrance is a few feet above me, hidden in a tangle of heather and bramble bushes, but I’m still wholly in the forest.
But it’s changed. The dense woods I’d just been in with Evander and Sydney give way to sparse trees and a rolling, hilly landscape of soft green grass.
I’m past the wards.
I can’t feel the strain of my dad’s magic on my shoulders any longer.
I look up at the tunnel and can barely see the entrance through the glare of the morning sun.
‘Evander?’
Nothing.
‘S-Sydney?’
I wait on my knees, my voice carrying through the mind-link into a vast nothingness.
An hour passes. The sun creeps higher through the tall, spindly trees above my head as I wait, and wait, and wait.
My heart cracks with the knowledge that Evander isn’t coming. I feel it in my bones as I wrap my cloak tight around my body despite the climbing heat. Sydney, too, won’t be coming through that tunnel. I’m alone.
There has to be more entrances like this through my dad’s wards. Tunnels and passages steeped in ancient magic even his powers can’t touch. It’s the only way the Draven Coven could have gotten in and out unnoticed. It answers one question I had, at least, which was how the mystics who went behind my mom’s back were able to help the Draven Coven get into Moonrise before they used magic to tear down the wards and attack.
A hollow feeling settles low in my belly as morning turns to midday, and I still haven’t moved. Hungry, hopeless, and unsure how to move forward, I rise, and my shadow consumes me.
I have no idea where I am. I walk for another hour, picking through the forest, walking up the hills to look out over what I realize is an increasingly barren landscape. If I go forward in this direction, I’ll have no cover from the sun. I’ll be out in the open, vulnerable, save for my shadow.
But as I crest another rise, a tickle deep in my brain halts me in my tracks.
‘Mom? Mom–oh, my Goddess, I need your help!’
‘Where are you?’ Mom says frantically. ‘There was an attack just within the wards–’
‘We were going to find Brie, and then we got attacked by hellhounds. I think I’m in the Deadlands somehow. Nothing is familiar.’ I look around, taking in the cragged, barren mountains and golden plains stretching into the horizon. How did I get so far from the Roguelands, and why? Did the tunnel through those trees take me here? Is it some kind of portal?
I shake my head and squint up at the sun. My body aches from draining my powers. My shadow starts to recede, but I pull it back up, forcing it to stay in place and keep me hidden.
‘I can feel Brie. Like I’m bound to her somehow, and we were able to follow her scent for a while, but now everything is hazy–’
‘Listen to me, Kenna,’ Mom says hastily. ‘Your father is in the Roguelands. There was another attack by the Dravens. He’s declaring war.’
My heart shatters but I nod, even though she can’t see me.
‘You need to find a way to the river. If you follow the river north, you’ll eventually reach Moonrise again.’ She sounds strained, like she’s holding back tears. ‘I’m using my powers to put more shields around Moonrise. I’ll find the hellhounds, but I can’t help you jump home–’
‘Gabriel has Evander and Sydney.’ I take a deep breath, turning my fear and stress into something new, something dark. ‘He has Brie. I’m not coming home without them.’
‘I know.’
Shock ripples through me. I swear I can hear the smile in her voice. ‘I wouldn’t have come home with your father.’
‘What do I do?’ I ask, yanking on my resolve. Don’t fall apart. Don’t cry. Will your powers to roil and fester into something dark and deadly.
‘Do what you have to do, Kenna. You were born for this. Do not trust anyone–’
The mind-link suddenly cuts out. I whirl back toward the woods and find a mystic standing several yards away in the shadows, her silver cloak shimmering in the sunlight.
Her mask of moonstone reflects the sun in a blinding fashion. I squint and shield my eyes.
I have an overwhelming feeling that this isn’t good.
“Princess Kenna,” she says in a voice both young and old, male and female. It sends shivers up my spine as she bows low and slowly straightens. She must sense me because of her powers, despite my shadow. “We’ve been looking all over for you. Your family is worried sick.”
“I’m lost,” I say, unease spreading over my skin in soft ripples of energy that ignites my strained powers.
She nods, probably smiling demonically behind her pretty mask. “Your mother tasked me with bringing you home. Come, now. Everything will be all right.” She stretches out a hand–long, pale fingers smudged with… dirt.
I sweep my gaze over the cloak and the dress she’s wearing beneath it. Dirt, grime, and splotches of dried blood. Upon further inspection, it looks like she’s been outside for a long time. Her hem is torn and muddy, and even her mask doesn’t glisten with its normal luster.
‘Where is your hellhound?” I ask.
She drops her arm, her hand curling into a fist before she tucks it behind her back.
“Mystics don’t have hellhounds. Hellhounds are gone, Princess. Surely you’re educated enough to know your mother eradicated that practice. Come, we have to go.”
“Where is my daughter?”
The mystic looks down at me, her face hidden by her mask. I notice the blood on her neck then. A handprint, like someone tried to kill her by strangling her, or tried to stop her from killing them.
“She’s back at the castle. It was a huge misunderstanding.”
“And my mate?”
Nothing. She says absolutely nothing for what feels like ages.
I feel a shift in the air between us. I can almost taste her rage as she takes a single step toward me.
I hold my ground.
“You’re lost and delirious, Princess.” She grabs my arm and squeezes so hard I feel my bones rubbing together. Her power collides with mine, and I suddenly find it hard to breathe.
Mystics are an enigma. They don’t cast spells or make potions. They can’t shift, and they don’t possess the kinds of senses shifters do.
They read the stars. And they can appear anywhere, using their powers to jump.
“You gave Gabriel the ability to jump. He harnesses that power from a mystic.”
She digs her nails into my arm, but I don’t even flinch.
“Come, Princess. Let me make this more comfortable for you.”
I feel her power trying to overpower my own. She’s trying to spirit us away, to where, I don’t know, but I’m too much for her.
She growls, her nails cutting into my skin.
But then she lets go and draws a huge, thin sword from her cloak.
Well, this is new. I never knew mystics were armed.
“Bad idea,” I warn, raising my hands. “Do you know what will happen to you if you kill the only heir to Eastonia?”
“Gabriel is the rightful king.” She swings the sword.
I jump back, the tip grazing over my belly and cutting through my dress. “Missed me.”
Her snarl echoes off the hills around us.
My powers burn to life, and I find myself smiling. “Tell me where my mate and child are, and I’ll let you live.”
She chuckles, swinging her sword–made of pure silver– again. “You don’t have it in you, Princess. You’ve always been so small, so scared, and so, so kind. You don’t have it in you to kill.”
“I never said anything about killing.” I grin, my canines lengthening as my wolf powers prickle to life. “I’m a wolf, too, remember. I like to play with my food.”
She lets out a growl and screams, lunging for me with her sword raised.
In that very moment, my shadow erupts, mingling with my wolf powers until I’m nothing but pure night, pure power, and a tiny bit of canine.
Her sword cuts through the air as I shift and leap out of her way. My wolf is black as night but covered in a silver shadow that oozes with stardust. Silver fire flames to life as I land behind her and turn around to face her again.
She edges away, shocked. I’m a little shocked, too. I didn’t know I could combine my powers.
What else can I do?
My fur stands on end as I let the full brunt of my powers come to surface. I don’t need them all, obviously. But this is for research… at least, that’s what I’m telling myself.
Leashes of shadows funnel from my body like rays of pure death.
The mystic drops her sword and tries to run, but my shadows have her surrounded.
I edge forward, allowing my shadows to creep closer to her, to box her in. My silver fire slithers toward her, burning everything in its wake in its path. Her silver sword melts and withers to ash at her feet.
“Wait!” she cries out, raising a hand.
I’m beyond mercy as I say, “Where is my mate?” My human voice booms from all around us. I can talk in wolf form. I add that to the list of strange powers and continue. “And where is my daughter?”
“I can’t–I don’t know–I was supposed to get you alone and kill you.”
“Like the mystic in the cave during the Rite? No one was supposed to show up to perform the ritual with me, were they? The mystics purposefully made Evander believe he was doing the Rite without his mate and vice versa! You needed me alone. You knew I’d accept the nomination. You knew I wouldn’t ever put my own feelings first. I always did what was right for the coven and you used that against us!”
“P-Please!”
“No,” I say, my voice thundering over the hills and the forest behind me. “It’s too late for that. What you’ve done is unforgivable. How many more mystics are working for Gabriel?!”
“We didn’t have a choice!”
“Bullshit. You’re the most powerful witches in our world! You gave him his powers!”
I swipe a paw at her face, knocking off her mask. It shatters beside her, the crystals turning ashen and dissolving beside her.
She’s a little older than me. Her skin is so pale I can nearly see through it. Round, wide, deep-set brown eyes meet mine in fear.
“Was the world that much better under Kane?” I ask. “A world where your kind were captured, enslaved, and drained of your powers?”
“Gabriel has a following,” she warns, baring her teeth. “He has an army.”
“He is one against many,” I correct, snarling. “My father’s army and my uncle’s army would decimate him–”
“He has a relic like your mother’s mask,” she pants. “It’s an orrery.”
Confusion clouds my senses for a split second.
“Only his sister can power it. It’s her gift. He used her powers eleven years ago to charge it, overthrowing Atticus as head of the coven. But the orrery is running out of power. He’s getting weaker. Our powers as mystics can only help him so much. He needs her and will tear your uncle's kingdom apart to find her. He thought he could use you, or Princess Misty, but he needs a specific… skill set.”
“What can she do–”
The mystic pulls a dagger from her cloak and screams, sending it through her own heart.
I rush away from her, my chest squeezing tight.
Her eyes go dim as she collapses.
My powers retreat. The sun shines again, covering the ashen clearing in streams of gold.
The mystic’s chest rises and falls once, then twice, before she stills and then…
Her body disappears, her clothes going slack as her flesh turns to pale moondust, dust that drifts away on the wind.
I shift back to my human form involuntarily and fall to my knees, unable to catch my breath. My whole body is on fire. My bones ache as I try to rise, but I’m exhausted.
But I catch a glimmer in the outer pocket of her clock. I crawl toward it, my fingers brushing over a smooth, worn surface of some kind of circular object.
It’s Sydney’s compass.
I was right when I thought they’d been captured and taken.
My heart skips a beat as I dress in the Mystics tarnished, bloody dress and cloak, my own clothes torn to shreds.
I clutch the compass as I look out over the landscape before me.
“Where are they?” I ask the Goddess, and the compass grows suddenly warm in the palm of my hand.